


the space between

by pendules



Category: Football RPF, Sports RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-04
Updated: 2011-05-04
Packaged: 2017-10-19 00:23:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/194852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pendules/pseuds/pendules
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>06/07 season.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the space between

(The facts are there. A defeat of Valencia. Two points behind Barça. A two-point gap, and Iker clenches his fists as if taking it as his own. He's always believed in that; whether it's a loss, a win, a draw; it belongs to you.)

They lie in bed together. David's arm flung over his torso, and face against his neck.

They'd _made love_. David likes to say that.

Iker, he's always considered it dirty, a _dirty fuck_. (But it never was that, was it?)

Last night was different.

David, he likes to be intricate about things. He likes things that _mean_ , people who _feel_. (Iker wonders sometimes how he fits into that.) It starts from the moment he wraps fingers around his wrist; gentle but firm. Gentle but firm like his foot connecting with a ball, just the right amount of touch. Makes a parabola in the sky. Shatters a defense. Pierces its heart.

Football, it isn't that different from chess if you think about it. (The context is the same.) You take out the pawns first. You struggle with the knights, the bishops, the _queen_. There is a king. His castle is a 7.32mx2.44m net.

Iker's the king.

 

He calls David a pansy when they first speak. Indirectly and not in exactly those terms, but still.

David, insult is pretty much wasted on him. (It doesn't stop him from saying _what the fuck have you done to your hair?_ though.)

(He'll come to find other ways to hurt him.)

 

Iker is obsessive at first. Realises the only true way to hurt this man is to give him exactly what he wants.

He'll look at himself in a mirror in summer, and say, "Sometimes I feel old, _too_ old."

Iker, sitting on the bed, pulling back on his clothes will smirk.

 _Mission accomplished._

 

(What Iker didn't count on is that David, he's always been vaguely reminiscent of a _knight._ )

 

It's January and Spain's never felt this constricted before.

(It's never felt this lonely.)

 

David, he says nothing. Shows up to training and that's that. As if every fucking other person on the planet didn't have David Beckham on their minds, in their conversations.

Iker, he lets him fuck him in a storage cupboard, and lets him go, lets him walk away.

 

It doesn't happen again for a while.

 

Bayern, and it's do-or-die, and Iker's never been fond of that (of _checkmates_ ). David is sublime, and unreachable; in a strange, new state, and he catches himself staring from afar. Without paying attention to anything else a few times. He's fluid, and it feels like it's ten years ago.

(David, he almost lets himself believe it's 1999 again.)

(The heart of a knight lasts forever.)

 

Iker learns the difference between the words 'sex' and 'love' that night.

 

David lies on his side, props his head up on his elbow, and looks at him. Smiles. Says, "Mate, I'm leaving." Maybe grins even more after.

(It's strange; he's never said it out loud before. Iker feels like throwing something, like hitting something, him, anything.)

It hangs there, vaguely, and almost doesn't, like just some toss-away comment, like _you're one bloody good fuck, you know?_

He gets up a minute later to go into the bathroom, and stops at the door to turn and say, "You were here long before I was."

 

(The next leg makes him resent that though. He curses injury, damns it to hell, dials his number and hangs up, and sleeps, and forgets. Forgets, until David calls him in the morning, and the loss is real, and it's _theirs._ )

 

Spain's never been this lonely.

 

But David, he's never been this selfless. _Fucking narcissistic bastard_ , as Iker's always thought, said, screamed. Screamed, and it wasn't true any of those times.

You are what you are, and what the world changes you into isn't your fault.

You're not allowed to change yourself though. That's against the rules of the game.

 

Against the rules. David has really twisted rules. Iker remembers musing once: _maybe I can break Ronaldinho's legs. Both of them. Not just one._

And David had taken another sip of whatever the fuck they'd chosen to drink that night, and winked, and said _that's against the rules, mate._

Iker, he wonders if certain _words_ are against the rules too.

 

He's never before, but it's April, and Spain is starting to look better again. The skies are clearing, and there's a date, a time, a new age drawing near, but he won't think of that now. He thinks instead of the space between.

Barça loses while they watch on TV, and it seems far away. Far away like _another continent_ far away. And David laughs like anything, and he kisses him, and they roll around for a couple minutes, half-wrestling, until Iker submits.

 

And Iker wonders if giving him what he wants just for the sake of it - if _that's_ against the rules.


End file.
